Isoroku Yamamoto (Japanese: 山本 五十六 Yamamoto Isoroku, April 4, 1884 – April 18, 1943) was a leading admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy. He was responsible for their strategic direction which culminated in the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway.
He was born Isoroku Takano (Takano Isoroku; 高野 五十六) to a middle-rank samurai father. The name Isoroku is an old Japanese term for the number 56—his father's age when he was born. In his early thirties, he took the family name Yamamoto when he was adopted into another samurai family; it was common for samurai families without sons to adopt suitable young men to carry on the family name.
Like many officers of Japan, he spent a considerable amount of time in the United States, having gone to Harvard and serving as a naval attaché in Washington. Because of this, he was well aware of the great industrial potential that America had and correctly knew that they would be able to outproduce Japan if the two nations went to war.note Furthermore, Yamamoto advised against the building of the super battleships like the Yamato, which ultimately proved nigh-useless in battle while consuming resources that could have otherwise doubled the more vital carrier fleet.
In 1941, the United State decided to take action against Japan's aggressive expansionist policies in China. They cut off all oil and scrap metal trade with the resource-poor islands, leaving the Japanese with an eighteen month supply of oil. The General Staff decided they would need to seize the oil-rich Dutch colonies of the South Pacific but feared the US Pacific Fleet, which had recently relocated to Hawaii as a sign of American power. Though, as mentioned above, Yamamoto believed that Japan would inevitably lose a prolonged war against America, he could only guarantee a window of six months of Japan having the advantage upon the opening of hostilities, the honor-bound officer was obliged to agree and find some way to possibly defeat the Americans.
His strategy would involve crippling the Pacific Fleet while at anchor at Pearl Harbor, leaving the IJN free to seize much of the Pacific before America could recover. After that, he would need to defeat the US Pacific Fleet in a decisive battle to buy more time or force America to a negotiated peace. Although the attack on Pearl crippled the Pacific Fleet's battleships, well beyond their most optimistic projections, the American carriers were not in port. Thus, America was forced to depend on these vessels, which, coupled with the fact that the Japanese did not target Pearl's shore facilities and oil storage, the destruction of which could have crippled the US Pacific Fleet on its own, meant the US Pacific Fleet was still a dangerous threat.
As a result, Yamamoto decided he needed to maximize Japan's defences by taking the atoll of Midway, which has an US base, while luring out the American carriers into a battle of his choosing. The Japanese government was resistant, but the US' daring Doolittle Raid, which had bombers launch from carriers to strike at the Japanese Home Islands convinced them. Against his better judgement, Yamamoto's refined plan proved overly complex when he bowed to pressure and arranged a grand diversionary attack at the Aleutian Islands which dangerously dispersed their forces. Unfortunately, the Japanese's necessary element of surprise was lost thanks to American codebreakers learning of their attack and then tricking them into confirming their target was Midway. The result was Japan attempting to take a forewarned and heavily armed target while the US carrier fleet prepared an ambush of its own. The result was the battle of Midway, which ended in a disastrous defeat that resulted in the utter decimation of the bulk of Japan's main aircraft carriers, closing Yamamoto's projected window of military advantage of six months after Pearl Harbor almost to the day.
After Midway, the Japanese were forced onto the defensive. Despite the loss of their carriers and veteran air crews, the IJN was still a formidable force. Yamamoto himself went to Guadalcanal to oversee operations against the American Marines. In April 1943, his transport airplane was intercepted by American fighters and shot down, providing America a much-needed vengeance for the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Today, Yamamoto is respected as a master naval strategist, if largely a tragic figure who was largely innocent of the Japanese military's notorious brutalities to the point where he was threatened to be assassinated by Japanese militarists, whose warnings of what Japan was taking on should have been heeded, but was ultimately undone by his ego, interference by his superiors and factors out of his control like his navy's compromised encryption.
Fictional Appearances
Anime and Manga:
- Zipang
- Deep Blue Fleet
Movies:
- He's played by So Yamamura in the film Tora! Tora! Tora!, which popularized an apocryphal quote from Yamamoto: "I fear all we've done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
- Actor Toshiro Mifune played him three times, including the 1976 film Midway.
- The Michael Bay film Pearl Harbor also featured Yamamoto, this time played by Mako.
- The 2011 Japanese Biopic Isoroku, played by Kōji Yakusho.
- Etsushi Toyokawa played him in the 2019 version of Midway.
